Just as Zeng Ling had anticipated, on the third day after the Yanshan Camp’s main army arrived, the fighting outside the city ceased.

Luo Geng sent messengers in succession to Yu Chaozong and the others, proposing a meeting on the open ground east of the city, where the leaders of all four factions would confer on the military situation.

For fairness, all four factions would pull their forces back, clearing the open ground east of the city. Each leader would be permitted to bring one hundred personal guards.

At the appointed time, Luo Geng arrived first with a hundred cavalrymen and waited. Yu Chaozong came second. He stepped forward when he saw Luo Geng, paid his respects with a bow, exchanged a few words of small talk, and then both men withdrew to sit apart from each other.

Then came the Qingzhou military commissioner Cui Yanla, and last of all the Yuzhou military commissioner Liu Li. The moment Liu Li spotted Cui Yanla, fire seemed to leap behind his eyes. While still at a distance, he spat in Cui Yanla’s direction.

Cui Yanla flew into a rage and cursed him roundly as a brute.

“Gentlemen — sit down first.”

Luo Geng pressed his hand downward.

Each man had brought his own chair, as if they had arranged it beforehand. The four of them sat some three or four zhang apart, none of them close to any other.

“Carrying on like this only gives Zeng Ling reason to laugh at us.”

Luo Geng said in a measured voice. “In the end, we will not have taken Jizhou, we will have butchered each other until bodies are strewn everywhere, while Zeng Ling watches the spectacle from his city walls and laughs at us all for being fools.”

The Yuzhou military commissioner Liu Li gave a cold snort. “I threw everything I had into attacking that city. The gate broke open — and then someone stabbed me in the back.”

Cui Yanla said with a sneer: “Who doesn’t know how everyone here thinks? It’s plain as day. No need to act so wronged.”

Liu Li looked at him. “What if we stopped competing for Jizhou altogether, pulled our troops apart, and you and I had a proper fight, just the two of us?”

Cui Yanla said: “You think I’m afraid of you? I simply don’t stoop to fight idiots. I don’t have that much time to spare playing house with you.”

Luo Geng frowned slightly. “Can we not quarrel?”

Cui Yanla looked at Luo Geng. “And you — stop playing the innocent. You stabbed me in the back, and I haven’t forgotten.”

Luo Geng replied in a calm, even tone: “After this fight is over, I may well stab you again. If I’m feeling generous, perhaps two stabs. Three, even.”

Cui Yanla said: “You think that because people call you invincible in the north, you actually are? Last time you only got the better of me because you came from behind. Next time, I won’t let you walk away from my army alive.”

Luo Geng said: “If you’re that eager to fight, then let’s break up now. When I get back, I’ll join with Lord Liu against you. The two of us against one of you.”

Yu Chaozong said: “Three against one.”

Cui Yanla blazed with fury and rounded on Yu Chaozong. “A coarse and uncouth man — a bandit chief — what standing do you have to speak in my presence?”

Yu Chaozong appeared unperturbed. He smiled. “I am coarse and uncouth, a bandit chief — but I have over a hundred thousand troops.”

Cui Yanla glowered at him but said nothing more.

“I’m done arguing,” said Luo Geng. “Let me say a few things.”

Cui Yanla gave a short, dismissive sound. “Say what you like. No one’s begging you.”

Luo Geng paid him no mind, composed his words, and said: “Rather than fighting among ourselves like this, it would be better to lay everything plainly on the table. I’ll speak first: I have no interest in Jizhou itself — but I want half the grain stores in Jizhou’s granaries transported out, and from Jizhou going northeast all the way to Youzhou, every prefecture and county in between shall be mine.”

Cui Yanla said: “On what basis?!”

Luo Geng rose. “Then let’s break up and go back to fighting. The three of us join up, wipe out your forces first, and then the three of us sit down and work out the division.”

Cui Yanla turned his head away.

Liu Li said: “General, let’s all stay seated and talk it through. We can’t really let Zeng Ling sit up there laughing at us.”

Luo Geng gave a nod and sat back down. “Then let’s be clear about it. My forces will attack whichever gate — the west, the south, it doesn’t matter — and once the city is breached, my men go only to the granaries.”

Yu Chaozong said: “I’ll take the north gate. If I breach it, my forces will only garrison the area inside and outside the north gate. I also have no interest in Jizhou itself — but from Jizhou going north and going west, a total of eleven prefectures and twenty-three counties — I want all of those. Additionally, if Jizhou falls and the north gate I’m attacking has nothing to do with it, I’ll ask for nothing — I’ll take my chances later. But if my forces are the first to breach the city, then whatever the number of surrendered Jizhou soldiers, I want half.”

Cui Yanla moved to speak. But Yu Chaozong’s gaze had already settled on him, and Luo Geng’s had followed.

What Cui Yanla had been about to say was: *Yu Chaozong, what gives you the right to make demands here? Of the four people at this table, three of us are officials of the court — two military commissioners and a general. What are you?*

But he held his tongue. He knew when to stop.

“Say what you want.”

Luo Geng turned to the Yuzhou military commissioner Liu Li.

Liu Li considered for a moment, then said: “I also have no interest in Jizhou, but after the city falls, among the surrendered Jizhou soldiers, I want half as well. From Jizhou southward, I already hold seven prefectures and sixteen counties; I want twenty more counties on top of that.”

By now everyone had spoken except Cui Yanla — and it seemed as though all of this was going to leave Jizhou itself in his hands.

Cui Yanla was startled. He looked at the three of them, and his expression began to shift and flicker. He did not believe for a moment that none of the three actually wanted Jizhou.

“Fine words all around. Standing here, every one of you is high-minded and principled. This one says he doesn’t want Jizhou, that one says the same. You expect me to believe you?”

After hearing Cui Yanla’s words, Luo Geng said in a flat voice: “Right now there are four people at this table. There can also be three.”

Cui Yanla said: “Unless you can guarantee it — unless there’s real accountability — it doesn’t matter how splendidly everyone speaks, how generously everyone professes to give. In the end, it’ll still end in fighting.”

He stood. “I won’t pretend. I won’t be that hypocritical. I came here to take Jizhou City. I lost Qingzhou — I have to take Jizhou. Whoever tries to take it from me, I’ll fight them to the death. If it comes to that, no one gets it.”

Luo Geng said: “Jizhou is yours. You only need to agree to our terms.”

If their three proposals were taken together, they had divided Jizhou into four roughly equal parts. Cui Yanla worked it out: Luo Geng already held Youzhou, and with the territory he was claiming, he would have roughly a quarter of Jizhou’s total holdings. Yu Chaozong’s share was comparable. Liu Li’s as well. What remained for Cui Yanla was somewhat less — but it included Jizhou City itself.

And so Cui Yanla thought it over, then said: “In that case, let’s go by the arrangement: I attack the east gate, General Luo attacks the west, Lord Liu attacks the south, and… Chief Yu attacks the north. Each attacks his own gate without interfering in the others.”

Luo Geng said: “Then it’s settled.”

He rose. “I’ll go back now and redeploy my forces toward the west gate. I’ll set the example first.”

He cupped his hands in a parting salute and turned to leave.

Yu Chaozong said: “I’ll go break down my camp on the east side right now and turn toward the north gate.”

Liu Li stood, shot Cui Yanla a glare, and walked off without a word.

He had taken a heavy blow in the earlier fighting. Between the Qingzhou forces and the Yanshan Camp closing in on him from both sides, his Yuzhou army had lost over twenty thousand men. If he had not retreated fast enough, the losses would have been even greater.

His resentment of Yu Chaozong was real — but he resented Cui Yanla even more.

Because in the minds of men who had served as officials, no matter what else might be said, an official and a rebel army were simply not the same kind of people. He and Cui Yanla were the same kind of people — and when that kind fights that kind, the bitterness runs deeper.

Liu Li caught the glare Cui Yanla threw back at him, but could not be bothered to respond. He was already mounted and riding away.

After all four men returned to their camps, all four armies began to stir. The Yanshan Camp began tearing down its already half-built encampment, its forces starting to assemble. From within Luo Geng’s Youzhou camp, the sound of horns rang out in waves, and tent after tent came down before their eyes.

Cui Yanla knew they were all lying. This meeting had done nothing more than settle who attacked which position — a temporary arrangement of mutual non-interference. When the city finally fell, whoever breached the walls first would pour everything they had inside. Who would ever surrender Jizhou once it was in their grasp?

They’d have to be out of their minds.

That was what Cui Yanla told himself — even if those three knelt at his feet and swore it, he would not believe them.

Back in his own camp, Cui Yanla set his forces in motion, waiting for the Yanshan Camp to clear the area so he could move his army to block the east gate.

At this point Liu Li’s forces were farthest from Jizhou City — his army had retreated at least several dozen li in the previous engagement — and since they had never established a camp at that distance, they actually arrived back the fastest.

Not long after Liu Li’s forces arrived, war horns sounded from both Luo Geng’s Youzhou encampment and the Yanshan Camp to the north — almost simultaneously.

Three factions closing in.

Liu Li’s forces struck first, pressing savagely against the Qingzhou army from behind — just as the Qingzhou army had stabbed him from behind on that earlier day.

When word reached Cui Yanla, he flew into a rage and personally led his central forces to meet them.

He had barely moved when the Yanshan Camp’s massive army came crashing down from the north like a wave breaking across the earth, and Luo Geng’s Youzhou forces came cutting in from the west.

Cui Yanla had known that none of those three could be trusted — but he had not imagined that all three would genuinely join forces against him.

At the conference, those three had even spoken openly of uniting to finish him. Cui Yanla hadn’t believed a word of it.

When exactly that coalition had formed, Cui Yanla did not know. But he knew when it would end.

When his Qingzhou army was defeated.

The engagement that followed drew in hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Liu Li’s forces had launched their assault in the afternoon; by the time all three armies had fully encircled the Qingzhou forces, night had fallen. Yet the attack did not stop for darkness — from the first moment, all three factions had gone in without probing or testing. Their objective was to finish off Cui Yanla’s forces as quickly as possible.

Beneath the night sky, on the city wall.

Zeng Ling held a spyglass up to survey the area south of the city. The hand holding it trembled ceaselessly.

He was agitated. He was exhilarated.

“I knew they couldn’t truly unite — I only didn’t expect them to go after Cui Yanla first. I had assumed it would be Yu Chaozong.”

Excitement had twisted his expression into something almost frightening to look upon.

“Fight. Hit each other hard.”

He kept muttering to himself.

“Four dogs tearing at each other — the more that die, the better.”

The sun went down and the moon came up, and then the moon went down and the sun rose again, and the fighting had not yet stopped.

When full daylight arrived and the battlefield came clearly into view, Zeng Ling — who had been standing on the city wall all through the night on the strength of his excitement — could see the shape of the fighting plainly.

The Qingzhou army had been compressed into a smaller and smaller space. Three sides of the encirclement were still tightening.

By afternoon, the slaughter was over.

Cui Yanla, eyes red from battle, kept screaming at his men to counterattack. When anyone tried to counsel him, he cut them down. After he had killed three or four of his own generals in succession, one of his remaining commanders attacked him from behind — and drove a blade through him from the rear.

His generals had decided to surrender.

The Qingzhou army was rapidly divided up — like the carcass of a great beast, hacked apart piece by bloody piece, every faction clawing for their share.

—